• ucarr
    1.5k


    If one event were measured at -0.75 degrees celsius and another event measured at -0.250 degrees celsius, with everything else being equal, would this wide temperature differential between the two states of the events mean that a different measure would be associated with each event?

    As an example, might we expect that the self-organizing complexity of the first event would run at a faster rate than that of the second event, given the higher level of thermal energy present in the state of the first event?
  • universeness
    6.3k

    I also learned from our exchange. You are a better wordsmith than I, so I learned more about how notions may be expressed and how connections between complicated concepts may be made, in myriad and interesting ways.
  • universeness
    6.3k
    To clarify: I think "events" are micro phenomena (i.e. relations) and "objects" (i.e. asymmetric event-patterns aka "structures, processes") are macro – emergent – phenomena (i.e. ensembles, combinatorials); thus, "events" are a-causal, or random (i.e. noise) whereas "objects" are causal, or non-random (i.e. signals).180 Proof

    :chin: hmmmmmmm, I have just never contemplated an 'event,' such as two galaxies merging into each other, as a micro phenomena. I think we are in agreement that 'events,' such as abiogenesis are due to random happenstance and not 'intent.'
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    "Colliding galaxies" are, in fact, merging macro objects (i.e. astronomically complex systems of event-patterns) – a process, IMO, not just a single, discrete event. Also, abiogenesis is a (macro) process rather than an "event" as you say.
  • ucarr
    1.5k


    Do environmental forces such as temperature, gravitation and radiation impact "events?"
    — ucarr
    They are measures – self-organizing complexity (i.e. entropy) – of micro (quantum) events. Anyway, so what's your point?
    180 Proof

    My point is trying to examine whether self-organizing systems, accountable for self-organizing complexity, possess purpose. Are they instead automatons? Does their possible automation suggest another, external purposive agent for whom nature's automatons are artifacts? Is automatic pattern formation due to physical predisposition? How is the increase of complexity reconciled with random assemblage over lengthy time periods? Over a lengthly period of time, this might be an example of upward-negentropy. Has sustained, upward negentropy been observed, measured and calculated?
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    My point is trying to examine whether self-organizing systems, accountable for self-organizing complexity, possess purpose. Are they instead automatons?ucarr
    No. "Automatons" are machines programmed by intentional agents (e.g. h. sapiens). Self-organizing complex systems are dissipative processes (e.g. cell replication, terrestrial climate, solar radiation, black holes).
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    Are you a panpsychist ucarr?universeness

    • I’m a panpsychist in that I believe all matter at all levels, including compounds, elements, radicals, molecules, atoms and elementary particles, are fundamentally compatible with the eventual development of sentience as an emergent property. As I understand this characterization of panpsychism, I think it is a broadly inclusive category. Not being sympathetic with panpsychism means denying sentience is an emergent property of matter. That’s tantamount to denying a relationship between the brain and the mind, isn’t it? On the other hand, it doesn’t imply belief that quarks have opinions or that rocks are willful.

    • In light of the above, I say that panpsychism is a basic element of my category. I refer to myself as a NUR-KWIM. This is my badly conceived attempt at forming an acronym for Non-Reductive Quantum Materialist. This label mainly declares my belief in quantum mechanics as a real description of the material dimensions of our universe. Again, this, I think, a broadly inclusive category. The non-reductive part allows for the membership of super-nature within the universe. A non-reductive materialist is not a pure materialist because the believer doesn’t think material interactions fully explain all phenomena. I think this allows a spectrum of non-reductive materialists.

    • My belief in super-nature doesn’t entail belief in an anything-goes realm of hobgoblins and the like. I’m not trying to squeeze an inscrutable god into those gaps in scientific theory populated by suppositions not fully verified as facts.

    • My super-nature, on the basis of speculation, I believe to be similar to Kantian noumena. (I haven’t yet embarked on reading Kant, thus the designation of speculation).

    • I postulate super-nature as a higher order of nature. As such, it’s the nature of nature. What is the nature of nature? It’s the eternal source of the matter, energy and phenomenal events of the natural world. All of this boils down to claiming existence, both material (the brain) and immaterial (the abstract thoughts of the mind) is inscrutably axiomatic.

    • Why is science, a part of the natural world, structurally subordinate to super-nature? In a nutshell, this is so because every theory explaining matter, energy and phenomena must begin with an unexplained and unexplainable GIVEN. The given is the point of departure for observation, analysis, experimental verification and compilation of distilled facts and statistical generalization. The given consists of the axioms underlying the theory, its attendant methodology and the values guiding the project as articulated in the philosophy of science.

    • Axioms, being the point of departure for scientific inquiry, experimentation, analysis and application, mark the origin boundaries of science and logic.

    • The realm of axioms is the super-nature that encompasses the natural world that supports science and logic. This is Carl Sagan’s eternal universe. Being timeless, super-nature, like the realm of Plato’s ideal forms and Kant’s noumena, stands in distinction from the natural world of temporal_material relations.

    • Even so, super-nature fuels the natural world existentially. The natural world is populated by states of being. Science and logic parse these states of being meaningfully and therefore usefully. They cannot, however, explain the existential fact of existing things. Existing things as instantiations of existence itself, in the eyes of the natural world, must be accepted as taken for granted, must be accepted as axiomatic.

    • Super-nature inhabits the natural world in collapsed form as the axiomatic. The axiomatic is the unexplainable fact of the existence of an existing thing.

    • Science and logic partake of the seminal bounty of super-nature whenever they generate new theories requiring new axiomatic assumptions. When radically new axioms jumpstart a theory, that’s when sentience encounters the almost unimaginable strangeness of the universe, as with Relativity and Quantum Mechanics.

    • In a multi-level universe containing both nature and super-nature, entropy is local but not cosmic. Entropy, obviously, is confined within the natural world. Therein we observe local entropy. To the extent the natural world is fueled existentially by super-nature, entropy is limited. In a universe which features super-nature encompassing nature, there is, ultimately, no finite succession of moments in time. There is no first moment, no expansive interval of intermediary moments, no last moment. This pattern might be a real structure of the natural world, but it’s only a repeating cycle as nature periodically refuels from super-nature after expending its previous fueling.

    • In our eternal universe, there is no truly seminal singularity and no final equilibrium of heat death.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    :chin: In other words,
    'the universe' is like a Möbius loop – an eternal cycle – wherein the topological 'twist' (ouroboros-like) corresponds to big bangs/big crunches (or white holes/black holes) Q-tunneling between bi-polar (i.e. positive-to-negative / matter-to-antimatter), quantum gravity manifolds consisting of strange-looping (or fractal-like) configurations (entropy gradients) of variable mass-energy densities ...
    Okay, as far as it goes; but it seems to me that Occam's Razor dispenses with ad hoc – unwarranted – notions like "panpsychism" and "super-nature" .

    @universeness
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    ...it seems to me that Occam's Razor dispenses with ad hoc – unwarranted – notions of "panpsychism" and "super-nature"180 Proof

    So panpsychism and super-nature, as presented in my statement, are superfluous to the things covered in your list.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    I think both are distinctions without explanatory or ontologucal differences. The link provided, IMO, renders each functionally redundant in the 'cosmological picture' under consideration.
  • universeness
    6.3k


    I found your treatment of panpsychism interesting ucarr, as I did the points made by @180 Proof.
    Where we part company ucarr, is your notion that your carefully hyphenated 'super-nature,' re-forms an exhausted cycle, we currently call the universe. I assume you are using 'super' here to denote 'above' or perhaps as existing as a discrete layer/dimension. The question then becomes, are you positing super-nature as a source of many universes, that as a totality, we might label 'cosmos' or are you more offering this 'super-nature,' as the currently unknown mechanism, which creates 'local' universes in a multi-verse, each of which will experience demise, via entropy, but will then be 're-formatted via super-nature?
    To me, this sounds akin to Mtheory, with each universe being created by 'clashing' interdimensional (or perhaps in your nomenclature, super-natural) 'branes.'
    I do not see where in your treatment of panpsychism and in your use of -super-nature, that you identify your 'intent' and 'teleology,' as fundamental aspects of your super-nature source?
    You yourself, do not suggest quarks are sentient, you suggest that panpsychism may have value as something that is 'emerging.' I assign some credence to this, as I can see how all consciousness, could be quantizable (and be rendered less and less sentient, as you further quantize) and when taken as a totality within the universe, will, over a very long time, become more and more 'networked,' and therefore could, in some distant future, become a 'pan' phenomena.

    I do not understand your need to find 'room,' for your previous (and perhaps still on-going) dalliances with theism. These quotes from you:
    • My belief in super-nature doesn’t entail belief in an anything-goes realm of hobgoblins and the like. I’m not trying to squeeze an inscrutable god into those gaps in scientific theory populated by suppositions not fully verified as facts.

    • My super-nature, on the basis of speculation, I believe to be similar to Kantian noumena. (I haven’t yet embarked on reading Kant, thus the designation of speculation).
    ucarr

    Suggest to me, an impetus to distance yourself more and more from all theistic notions.

    From Wiki:
    In philosophy, a noumenon is knowledge posited as an object that exists independently of human sense. The term noumenon is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to, the term phenomenon, which refers to any object of the senses. Immanuel Kant first developed the notion of the noumenon as part of his transcendental idealism, suggesting that while we know the noumenal world to exist because human sensibility is merely receptive, it is not itself sensible and must therefore remain otherwise unknowable to us. In Kantian philosophy, the noumenon is often associated with the unknowable "thing-in-itself". However, the nature of the relationship between the two is not made explicit in Kant's work, and remains a subject of debate among Kant scholars as a result.

    To me, that which is 'unknowable,' conflicts with the word 'cosmos' which has always been related to the concept of 'knowable.' How would you choose to discern between the notions of 'unknowable' and 'non-existent'? I personally see little significant difference between them.
  • PeterJones
    415
    The earth tells us life in our universe is possible.

    That matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed tells us our universe is eternal.

    Combination: within the environment of time never ending, all possibilities will be realized

    Life, a realized possibility on earth, has always been an inevitability — ucarr
    ucarr

    Could you define the word 'universe' here? Do you mean the space-time universe or the 'world as a whole'. These are very different things.
    .
    . .
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    Could you define the word 'universe' here? Do you mean the space-time universe or the 'world as a whole'. These are very different things.FrancisRay

    Note: You ask an important question just when I'm developing my thinking about the role of "universe" within "system." My response will therefore be both lengthy and expansive. I hope you won't be repelled by content that appears off-topic.

    By universe I mean: space-time universe.

    Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem tells us that for every math system, there is a solvable equation generated by that system but not governed by the rules defining that system. Penrose teases out a nuance of Gödel: a mathematician, following the rules of a math system, sees that a proposition of that system is true; even so, the mathematician also sees that the truth of that proposition cannot be proven using the rules defining the system.

    Penrose On Godel

    There are axiomatic ambiguities perplexing both math models and the material systems they model. The quest for T.O.E. might be quixotic.

    As math language is a good system for modeling material systems and, as math language, per Gödel, produces no closed systems, then probably material systems, like math systems, are open.

    If our material universe is an open system; this is tantamount to saying there is no universe. Universe is an idealization of system; it is an abstraction. Material systems make an approach to universe without arrival.

    If finite time sets the boundaries of system, then an open system that is eternal contains only local time, per Relativity. The paradoxical universality of local time, by its exclusion of an origin, might be a nail in the coffin of T.O.E. because "everything" is a synonym of universe.

    Entropy is another obstruction to universe. However, the good news is that with entropy being local only, there is no final heat death as there is no universe.

    Perhaps there is no entropy in the sense that the heat death of a sub-system is really the 1st law of thermodynamics: the conservation of matter-energy takes the active, existential form of heat death of local sub-systems, thus assuring a steady fund of free energy for birth of new sub-systems. 1st and 2nd laws of thermodynamics form a radical.

    An existential universe, as a unifying superstructure of necessity drawing from the total energy fund of thermodynamics, would continually develop, thus requiring an unlimited volume of energy, whereas the total volume of energy is finite, and thus there is no existential universe. There is no existential universe and there is no universal entropy.

    Local time only within a network of sub-systems might be a good definition of eternity.

    The postulated singularity figures to be an extreme position of a sub-system of our material universe, a collection of sub-systems existing at various levels of aggregation of sub-systems joined.

    Under this scheme, the puzzling question of the context of the singularity goes away. A singularity is merely a sub-system at extreme position amidst a network of sub-systems.

    The hyper-density of singularity is merely a necessary state of being for generation of the fundamental forces of a newly arising sub-system.

    The existential “universe” is an open network of sub-systems that is asymptotic to itself: it always approaches itself without arrival.

    An open system is binary, and its approach to itself is limited by its self-transcendence: it always approaches but never attains to itself as a unity; open system is irreducibly binary.

    This partial system status is the ground of the self-transcendence of life.* Self-transcendence exists in place of origin. Origin, like open system, is irreducibly binary. There are no monist origins.

    The universe-as-incomplete-network is always only partially definable: it is otherwise a mystery of incompleteness coupled with self-transcendence.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Why do you (seem to) equate "incompleteness" with "openness"? For instance, a transcendental number such as Pi is closed (i.e. defined) even though its expression is incompletable (i.e. unbounded). — Maybe the comparison doesn't work because Pi is an abstract entity and "the universe" is a / the concrete entity. — Well, if "the universe is an open network of subsystems", tell us what accounts for e.g. the inviolability of fundamental conservation laws. :chin:
  • Patterner
    1.1k
    IMO, Brian Greene does an excellent job of explaining entropy in Until the End of Time.
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    Why do you (seem to) equate "incompleteness" with "openness"? For instance, a transcendental number such as Pi is closed (i.e. defined) even though its expression is incompletable (i.e. unbounded).180 Proof

    You make a useful distinction. As you say, something incomplete might be closed. The two are not equivalent and the subsystem configuration is both open and incomplete.

    Maybe the comparison doesn't work because Pi is an abstract entity and "the universe" is a / the concrete entity.180 Proof

    Yeah. There is some idealization within math that expels the gray areas unavoidable within our material world.

    Well, if "the universe is an open network of subsystems", tell us what accounts for e.g. the inviolability of fundamental conservation laws. :chin:180 Proof

    QM tells us particle pairs entanglements are instantaneous across distance. Conservation laws support this such that distance across a boundary, even across a final boundary encompassing everything, allows entanglement.*

    This is another way of saying there is no all-encompassing boundary. (This is also a way of saying the network of subsystems is partially determinate.)**

    *Why would entanglement, even if uncheckable, become theoretically invalidated across an "everything" boundary?

    **The network of subsystems is not open due to a contest of forces pitting the contraction due to gravitational attraction against the expansion due to free energy; it is open because it is self-transcendent.

    The partial determinism of the network of subsystems doesn't dwell within an equivalence with expansion; its expansion, being non-linear, means increase of complexity mixed with increase of volume.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    QM tells us particle pairs entanglements are instantaneous across distance.ucarr
    I don't think so. QM suggests that "distance" – spacetime (i.e. gravity) – does not obtain at planck scales. Conservation laws, derived from Noether's theorem(s), make QM possible (or intelligible) as well as being classically observable. Anyway, I assumed from what you wrote previously that you were referring to the post-planck era of "the universe" ... I don't see how either QM or entanglement relevantly address my question:
    Well, if "the universe is an open network of subsystems", tell us what accounts for e.g. the inviolability of fundamental conservation laws.180 Proof
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    I don't think so. QM suggests that "distance" – spacetime (i.e. gravity) – does not obtain at planck scales.180 Proof

    If you're going down to the scale of , then you need to supply parameters for the domains of laws, theorems, functions, etc.

    • Is it established that gravitons have a measurement at the planck scale?

    • Is there a basic unit of spacetime?

    • If you scale below the basic unit of spacetime do you arrive at immeasurable infinite values?

    • Has string theory weighed-in on the domain of entanglement?

    Well, if "the universe is an open network of subsystems", tell us what accounts for e.g. the inviolability of fundamental conservation laws.180 Proof

    **The network of subsystems is not open due to a contest of forces pitting the contraction due to gravitational attraction against the expansion due to free energy; it is open because it is self-transcendent.ucarr

    If spacetime, the ground of matter_energy_motion, doesn't obtain at planck scales, then how is it that at the singularity, a realm scaled below planck scales, expansion involves stupendous heat, a phenomenon rooted in spacetime?
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    You're speculating outside of known physics (i.e. absent a falsifiable theory of QG) yet I'm asking you to reconcile known physics with another speculative claim you've made about the universe itself. Metaphysics that does not account for, or is not grounded in, well-established physics is indistinguishable from pseudo-science or worse, IMO. I wonder if I'm taking your statements here too seriously.
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    You're speculating outside of known physics (i.e. absent a falsifiable theory of QG)...180 Proof

    We both know entanglement has been experimentally verified:

    Quantum Entanglement

    QM tells us particle-pairs entanglements are instantaneous across distance.ucarr

    I don't think so. QM suggests that "distance" – spacetime (i.e. gravity) – does not obtain at planck scales.180 Proof

    Your argument against instantaneous, paired-particles communication appears to be based upon the Zeno's Paradox argument which physicists have refuted.

    If spacetime, the ground of matter_energy_motion, doesn't obtain at planck scales, then how is it that at the singularity, a realm scaled below planck scales, expansion involves stupendous heat, a phenomenon rooted in spacetime?ucarr

    Are you acknowledging singularity as unsupported speculation?

    Well, if "the universe is an open network of subsystems", tell us what accounts for e.g. the inviolability of fundamental conservation laws.180 Proof

    If you want to argue that any postulated universe not monist and oscillating violates conservation, then present your argument.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    No thanks. We're now talking past each other (and neither of us are physicists anyway). I'm no longer interested in what I thought you were saying about the concept "universe".
  • PeterJones
    415
    By universe I mean: space-time universe.ucarr

    In this case you're not speaking of a fundamental theory, .

    There are axiomatic ambiguities perplexing both math models and the material systems they model. The quest for T.O.E. might be quixotic.

    They can be overcome. They have no impact on my TOE. I won't expand because to do so would mean going off topic. I'll just say that a TOE must explain more than every ;thing'. since it must explain where 'things' come from. (As Kant recognized). A discussion for a different thread, though, and not relevant to the topic of entropy. . ..... .
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    Well, if "the universe is an open network of subsystems", tell us what accounts for e.g. the inviolability of fundamental conservation laws.180 Proof

    Are you asking how an open network of subsystems configures conservation within its domain?

    Do you perceive a conflict between conservation and and something implied by an open network of subsystems?

    We're now talking past each other (and neither of us are physicists anyway).180 Proof

    What does it mean to talk past someone?

    Why should not the general public talk about the concept "universe"?

    What did you think I was saying about the concept "universe"?

    Why was your impression of what I might be saying about the concept "universe" of interest to you?
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    By universe I mean: space-time universe.
    — ucarr

    In this case you're not speaking of a fundamental theory, .
    FrancisRay

    I'm speaking of "system," and positing universe as its limit. I imagine this has some bearing on TOE.

    There are axiomatic ambiguities perplexing both math models and the material systems they model. The quest for T.O.E. might be quixotic.

    They can be overcome. They have no impact on my TOE. I won't expand because to do so would mean going off topic. I'll just say that a TOE must explain more than every ;thing'. since it must explain where 'things' come from. (As Kant recognized). A discussion for a different thread, though, and not relevant to the topic of entropy. . ..... .
    FrancisRay


    Your TOE configures "everything" and its origin as discrete things?
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Are you asking how an open network of subsystems configures conservation within its domain?ucarr
    No.

    Do you perceive a conflict between conservation and and something implied by an open network of subsystems?
    Yes.

    What does it mean to talk past someone?
    I'm talking about known physics and, as far as I'm concerned, you are not.

    Why should not the general public talk about the concept "universe"?
    N/A

    What did you think I was saying about the concept "universe"?
    I think you're claiming that the universe is not causally closed and therefore the effect of 'some ontologically transcendent cause'.

    Why was your impression of what I might be saying about the concept "universe" of interest to you?
    I was interested in your 'speculative causal non-closure' which is inconsistent with the fundamental conservation laws of physics.
  • PeterJones
    415
    Your TOE configures "everything" and its origin as discrete things?ucarr

    Not ultimately discrete, but usually discrete in our thoughts and ordinary experience. I'm endorsing the advaita (not two) doctrine, and if there are not two things then discreteness is not an issue. In a sense there would be two worlds, one composed of things and one,empty of all things, but for an ultimate analysis or realisation the two worlds would be one.

    Thus the line from the poet Rumi, 'I have put duality behind me, I have seen that the two worlds are one.' . , . ,

    It is not my TOE, of course, for it predates human literacy. You might like to check out Nagarjuna's doctrine of 'two truths' or 'worlds' since it is designed to help us understand the relationship between the world of things and the world from which they emerge. . .
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    You ask:

    ...if "the universe is an open network of subsystems", tell us what accounts for e.g. the inviolability of fundamental conservation laws. :chin:180 Proof

    But after my I ask for clarification, you answer in the negative:

    Are you asking how an open network of subsystems configures conservation within its domain?
    — ucarr
    No.
    180 Proof

    Since we're talking about totality of existence, an open network of subsystems accounts for conservation by showing how the two things are related, presumably along the axis of compatibility.

    You deny possibility of compatibility when you say:

    Your 'speculative causal non-closure' which is inconsistent with the fundamental conservation laws of physics.180 Proof

    This denial leads me to the following questions:

    Is causally closed somewhere in the neighborhood of necessarily closed?

    Is speculative, causal, non-closure in the neighborhood of necessarily open?

    Do you think my supposed quest for a necessarily open universe is a quest for establishment of cosmic sentience?

    Do you think a causally open universe implies an increase of mass_energy that violates the 1st law of thermodynamics?

    Do you think a causally closed universe entails a partially deterministic universe? Under this construction, there is - via evolution - "blind variation and selective retention," but there is no transcendence of the materialist, natural world; there is no reality ontically non-material.

    Conjecturing a causally open universe that is transcendent non-ontically, what do you imagine such a universe would look like structurally speaking? Would it be consistent with conservation?

    Under this construction, a materialist universe of conserved mass_energy can support higher orders of materialist categories themselves materialist categories: the category of axiomatic givens is a higher order of phenomenal analysis.

    Do you see that one implication of your statements is that atheism is predicated upon a monist metaphysics? There is no bi-furcation of the universe into materialist/non-materialist categories.

    Do you see that an implication of monist metaphysics is that the metaphysics of theism, with its dualism of mass_energy/spirit, propounds a false binary?
  • ucarr
    1.5k
    Your TOE configures "everything" and its origin as discrete things?ucarr

    Not ultimately discrete...FrancisRay

    ...if there are not two things then discreteness is not an issue. In a sense there would be two worlds, one composed of things and one,empty of all things...FrancisRay

    Is the world empty of all things a spiritual world, or a material world?

    Is your postulation of the conjoined two-world one that renders it paradoxical?

    Thus the line from the poet Rumi, 'I have put duality behind me, I have seen that the two worlds are one.'FrancisRay

    You might like to check out Nagarjuna's doctrine of 'two truths' or 'worlds' since it is designed to help us understand the relationship between the world of things and the world from which they emerge. . .FrancisRay

    Are you saying the two worlds, being equivalent, preclude the matter/spirit duality?
  • PeterJones
    415
    Is the world empty of all things a spiritual world, or a material world?ucarr

    It's not described in these terms. Matter would be illusory, and the word 'spiritual' is more to do with occultism and theism than mysticism. The world we are in here and now would be empty of things, being composed of mere appearances. Nagarjuna;s 'conventional' and 'ultimate' worlds or levels of analysis are two ways of thinking about one unthinkable.world, or two ways of being conscious of it. For a final analysis the advaita doctrine states that nothing really exists or ever really happens. Not even entropy. ,

    Is your postulation of the conjoined two-world one that renders it paradoxical?

    Great question and a can of worms. It is not paradoxical but, rather, the only global theory that is not paradoxical. To explain this would require an adventure into naive set theory and Aristotle's logic. Probably better on a thread of its own. . .

    Are you saying the two worlds, being equivalent, preclude the matter/spirit duality?

    Every possible form of duality would be precluded. The matter/spirit duality would be an invention of human beings. A unity has no parts, and a fundamental theory must reduce all distinctions and divisions.

    Kant endorses this theory when he proposes that the the origin of the categories of thought is not a category pf thought and the origin of things is not a thing. Had he known of Nagarjuna I'm pretty sure Kant would have immediately understood the theory of emptiness and doctrine of two truths. ,

    The two worlds doctrine explains why metaphysical questions are undecidable. They present us with two extreme answers each of which is true in one world and false in the other and are therefore unrigorous and fail to take into account the world as a whole. At a stroke this does away with all metaphysical problems. When we endorse this solution metaphysics becomes unproblematic.but utterly mind-bending. . .

    Thanks for the good questions. We've wandered way off topic so apologies to the OP.
  • 180 Proof
    15.4k
    Is causally closed somewhere in the neighborhood of necessarily closed?ucarr
    I don't know.

    Is speculative, causal, non-closure in the neighborhood of necessarily open?
    I don't know.

    Do you think my supposed quest for a necessarily open universe is a quest for establishment of cosmic sentience?
    You tell me, ucarr. The term "cosmic sentience" seems to me oxymoronic.

    Do you think a causally open universe implies an increase of mass_energy that violates the 1st law of thermodynamics?
    Yes, either net increase or net decrease.

    Do you think a causally closed universe entails a partially deterministic universe?
    No.

    Conjecturing a causally open universe that is transcendent non-ontically, what do you imagine such a universe would look like structurally speaking? Would it be consistent with conservation?
    I've no idea. Inconsistent (i.e. theoretically incompatible with fundamental physics).

    Do you see that one implication of your statements is that atheism is predicated upon a monist metaphysics?
    No.

    Do you see that an implication of monist metaphysics is that the metaphysics of theism, with its dualism of mass_energy/spirit, propounds a false binary?
    I think substance dualism (i.e. "mass-energy / spirit") is inconsistent – theoretically incompatible – with fundamental conservation laws and the principle of causal closure in physics.
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